Sir Harold Beeley

12:00AM BST 31 Jul 2001

SIR HAROLD BEELEY, who has died aged 92, was one of the most experienced Arabists in the post-war Foreign Office; he was a member of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, an Assistant Under-Secretary concerned with Middle Eastern Affairs, and twice Ambassador in Cairo.

In 1961 Beeley became the first British Ambassador to be appointed in Cairo since Suez. He went on to develop a relationship with the Egyptian people, and especially with President Nasser, unequalled by any British envoy of his generation.

When Beeley left Cairo in 1964, having finally restored Anglo-Egyptian relations to as near their pre-Suez level as could be expected, Nasser was heard to complain publicly: "No sooner do the British have an Ambassador whom we know, like and trust, than they replace him with a new man."

With this background and his proven skill at smoothing the troubled waters of the Middle East - even though he did not speak Arabic - it was not surprising that the Foreign Secretary, George Brown, should turn to Beeley in 1967 and charge him with the task of repairing the Anglo-Egyptian relationship, which this time had been damaged by the Six Day War.

His appointment, initially as the Foreign Secretary's Special Envoy and then as Ambassador, caused consternation in Israel; the British were ridiculed for wooing the "beaten Egypt". But the editor of Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper declared that "Sir Harold Beeley treats us as equals, which is essential for any relations between two countries to be successful".

He made a reputation as a negotiator with special knowledge of the Arabs and of the intractable problems of their world. He was also unusual among members of the Diplomatic Service in being able to say that, "taking the rough with the smooth", he found it "a delight" to work for George Brown - notwithstanding his occasional "explosions of temperament".

Harold Beeley was born on February 15 1909 and educated at Highgate and Queen's College, Oxford, where he took a First in Modern History in 1930. Appointments at Sheffield University and University College, London, followed, after which he returned to Queen's as a Junior Fellow and Lecturer.

In 1936 he published a brief biography, Disraeli, in Duckworth's Great Lives series. In The Times, G M Young pronounced the book "excellent, leaving one only with the regret that the author had not a larger space within which to show his gifts. The narrative is compact, and the judgments, on Disraeli and such others as cross the little stage, are framed with good sense and delivered with good taste."

In 1938 Beeley was appointed Lecturer in charge of the History department at University College, Leicester. During the Second World War, he worked at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and then in the Foreign Office Research Department, with Professor Arnold Toynbee. In 1945 he was a member of the Secretariat of the San Francisco Conference and of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations.

His experience of the Middle East began in 1946, when he became Secretary of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine, whose findings in favour of partition outraged the Jews and branded Beeley forever in their eyes as being partly responsible for the tragedies which ensued.

He entered the Foreign Service as an established officer in 1946, and served in Copenhagen, Baghdad and Washington before going to Saudi Arabia as Ambassador, though only briefly, in 1955.

After a spell in London as an Assistant Under-Secretary dealing with Middle Eastern affairs (he was said to have stormed out of his office during the Suez crisis), he went to New York as deputy to the British Permanent Representative at the UN, Sir Pierson Dixon. Alan (later Sir Alan) Campbell thought Beeley "a very attractive man who played the UN game with considerable skill and aplomb".

Beeley went to Cairo for his first term as Ambassador, and as Britain's first Ambassador to the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria), in 1961. Before leaving, he wrote a policy paper which raised a storm at the Foreign Office.

In the paper he argued that Nasser was not really against Britain's power in the Middle East, but was mainly concerned with his own position in Egypt. He urged that Britain should throw her weight behind "Nasserism" against other Arab nationalist movements, even to the extent of backing the pro-Nasser nationalists in Aden.

The Egyptian press gave him a restrained reception on his arrival in Cairo; the official daily Al Gomhouria declared that the growth of genuinely friendly feelings between Britain and the Republic would depend on a change in Britain's attitude, for "imperialism is still lying in wait to plot in the very heart of the Arab world".

However, the Egyptian government regarded Beeley's appointment as the culmination of the slow, patient diplomacy which had brought both countries back from the disaster of Suez and into a relationship which both needed and desired. As a conciliatory gesture to Egyptian sensitivities, Beeley took down the portraits of Cromer, Gorst, Kitchener and Allenby from the walls of the Ambassador's study in the Embassy.

Anglo-Egyptian relations improved, but suffered another severe set-back with the coup d'etat in the Yemen in 1962. Egypt dispatched 40,000 troops to support the new republican regime; Britain declined to acknowledge it. Reports of Sir Alec Douglas-Home's statement in Ottawa two years later - that it was a pity that the Americans prevented the British from carrying through the Suez campaign - did not help.

Beeley was replaced in Cairo by Sir George Middleton in 1964, when he became Britain's Representative at the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. But in 1967 he returned to Cairo. Tall, elegant, and with a slight stoop which served to emphasise his natural courtesy, Beeley had a keen sense of humour. It was a court card in his diplomatic hand - and one which he frequently played with skill and perfect timing.

After his retirement in 1969, Beeley resumed his academic career, becoming a Lecturer in History at Queen Mary College, London. He also maintained his connections with Egypt, being president of the Egypt Exploration Society from 1969 to 1988, and chairman of the Egyptian-British Chamber of Commerce from 1981 to 1992. He was chairman of the World of Islam Festival Trust from 1973 to 1996.

He was appointed CBE in 1946, CMG in 1953 and KCMG in 1961. Harold Beeley married first, in 1933 (dissolved 1953) Millicent Chinn; they had two daughters. He married secondly, in 1958, Patricia Brett-Smith; they had a daughter.